NOTE FROM THE ASSOCIATE CHAIR
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Now that we are a few weeks into the semester and things are hopefully settling into place, I wanted to welcome everyone to the new school year with our first newsletter of 2023-2024. I’d like to start us off on an auspicious note by recognizing Professor Miranda Brown’s appointment to the Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker Collegiate Professorship in Chinese Studies.
 I reached out to Miranda to ask her why she chose to name her award after Dr. Feuerwerker (1928-2018). Miranda writes: “Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker was an inspiration for me. I met her after coming to Michigan in 2002. Along with her husband Al, she used to attend China Center events, and she was always very friendly and welcoming to me. At the time, I knew that she was a top-notch scholar. It was only later that I learned that she was also an excellent teacher and an exemplary citizen. Her career was clearly not the easiest. She got her start at a time when there were few Chinese or women in the China field—a field that was (and is) notorious for its coarse treatment of Asian and Asian American women. But somehow, she got through it all. After completing her MA, she worked in our department for decades as a language lecturer, doing the essential work of teaching American students Chinese. Then, after raising a family, she earned a PhD and became a trailblazer: she was the first Asian woman at Michigan to attain the rank of full professor (1995), paving the way for younger scholars like me.”
Congratulations, Miranda, and thank you for highlighting Dr. Feuerwerker’s pioneering work!
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 New faculty Trent Walker writes: “My name is Trent Walker and I’m a new assistant professor in the department. I work on Buddhism, literature, and music in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, drawing on texts and performances in a variety of contemporary and classical languages of South and Southeast Asia. My current book project is an intellectual history of Buddhist translation in mainland Southeast Asia, with a special focus on bilingual Pali-vernacular palm-leaf manuscripts from Central and Northern Thailand between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. I’ve also published widely on Cambodian literature and ritual chant, and try to share my work with the public at www.trentwalker.org. This Fall, I am teaching Introduction to Theravada Buddhism as well as Buddhist Magic, and in the Winter I'll teach a seminar on Southeast Asian literature.”
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 Dr. Hajime Hasegawa is in Ann Arbor this year as a Visiting Scholar based at CJS. Dr Hasegawa is Professor of Media Studies at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo (Japan), where his major research area is media studies and cultural sociology. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. His many publications include 『出版と知のメディア論』 (Media Studies for Publishing and Knowledge, 2003),『アトラクションの日常』 (Everyday Life as Attraction, 2009), and『ディズニーランド化する世界で希望はいかに可能か』 (How We Can Hope in the Disneylandizing Society, 2014). He was previously a visiting scholar at CJS 2017-2018.
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 This year’s Khyentse Visitor, Chenxing Han, writes: “I’m the author of Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021); one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care (2023); and a range of academic and popular articles on Buddhist studies, Asian American studies, and chaplaincy. I also run Roots and Refuge: An Asian American Buddhist Writing Retreat, am a co-organizer of May We Gather: A National Buddhist Memorial for Asian American Ancestors, and co-teach Listening to the Buddhists in our Backyard. I share my work at www.chenxinghan.org. I’m excited to return to the Midwest after many years on the West Coast and in Asia, and look forward to learning from all of you and connecting with U-M students. I'll be giving a public lecture and organizing a workshop later this year. I’m also available to give guest lectures in your classes; please reach out if you’re interested.”
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 Our new Japanese Language Program Director, Akiko Imamura, says: “Hello, my name is Akiko Imamura. I am the new Director of the JLP. I was born and raised in Sapporo, Japan, but it has been over ten years now since I moved to the U.S. I graduated from UW-Madison (Ph.D. 2018), and have taught Japanese language courses and introductory Japanese linguistic courses at Swarthmore College and Michigan State University before joining U of M. For academic work, I investigate language use and social interaction using Conversation Analysis and explore how to adopt conversation analytic findings to language education. Outside of work, I enjoy playing with dogs, exploring coffee shops and new restaurants, Japanese sake, hiking, and skiing. Also, I am eager to learn any DIY strategies for our house.
I look forward to meeting you in person and working with you! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”
 We are also joined by LRCCS postdoctoral fellow Peter Braden. He sends in the following: “I am a historian of modern China and East Asia, whose research focuses on environmental history, science and technology studies, and animal studies. After receiving my Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), I completed an An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Since 2021, I have been a research fellow at the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. My first book project, Serve the People: Bovine Experiences in China's Civil War and Revolution, 1935-1961, shows how humans and nonhumans affected each other during a transformative period in modern China's history. My second project, Collateral Killing: Humans, Rodents, and the Making of the Life Sciences in China shows how the lives of rats, mice, and other rodents changed when they became subjects of intensive state scrutiny, surveillance, and violence. I am delighted to join the ALC Department, where I am offering courses on Food and Drink of Asia, and Modern China in the World. In the Winter semester, I will offer courses on Mapping Rivers in Modern China, and Rice: Connecting Asian Societies, 1900-2024. I love teaching, and look forward to exchanging ideas and approaches with this dynamic department.”
 Mike Hawkins has joined ALC as a Lecturer for the 2023-2024 academic year. This Fall, he is teaching an introductory level course on Southeast Asia entitled “Surveying Southeast Asia: From Colonialism to Climate Change.” In Winter 2024, he will teach two additional courses. Beyond ALC, Mike teaches in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the International Institute. He recently earned his PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the Philippines, and his dissertation examined the changing politics of labor at the Port of Manila from 1898 to the present.
 Our Indonesian FLTA this year is Kurnia Syahputri. She is an English teacher at SMPN 6, Bengkulu Utara. She has been teaching English for 6 years. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English education from Universitas Bengkulu.
We also have a fully staffed office once again! Please click here to learn more about our staff.
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PUBLICATIONS, NEWS, AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
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 TOBIRA I: Beginning Japanese Workbook 2: Vocabulary, Grammer, Listening was released in July 2023. The collaborators include current and retired faculty from our Japanese Language Program: Mayumi Oka, Junko Kondo, and Yoshimi Sakakibara. (The other contributors are Michio Tsutsui and Hiroyo Nishimura.) This is a workbook to strengthen the vocabulary, expressions, and grammar learned in TOBIRA 1: Beginning Japanese and to acquire Japanese “sentence-making ability” and “listening ability.”
 Arvind Mandair has two new publications. The first, a monograph, is Philosophical Reflections on Sabad: Event-Resonance-Revelation (Marquette University Press: 2023). The second, a co-edited volume with 45 essays, is The Sikh World (Routledge: 2023). Arvind has also just wrapped up a two-day workshop around the theme of cross-cultural thought titled “Geophilosophies." It was held September 8-9 and will hopefully have a “part II” next year.
Miranda Brown published “From Millet to Mapo Tofu” (a review of Fuschia Dunlop's new book, An Invitation to a Banquet) in the August issue of the Literary Review.
  On August 18, 2023, India’s Independence Day celebration, Pinderjeet Gill was honored by the India League of America, Michigan. She was recognized for her achievements academic and professional excellence. The award was bestowed during a ceremony attended by more than 300 people on August 18th, 2023. Pinderjeet humbly views this award as a tribute to all those who teach and preserve Indian languages and cultures.
 Premlata “Pinki” Vaishnava has just completed the ACTFL 2021 ILR Skill Level Descriptors Familiarization/Norming Course. She also has a new co-authored chapter (with Bairam Khan) in the edited volume Hindī Sāhitya kā Uttara Madhyakāl: Vividh Āyām titled “Bhakti Kāl aur Videshon mein Hindī Śikṣaṇ.” Lastly, she was invited as a Field Expert and Main Speaker for an International Roundtable on legendary writer Munshi Premchand organized by Vishwa Hindi Sangathan and Dr. N.S.A.M College, Bangalore, India in July 2023. A link to the event can be found here.
Thanks to generous funding from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, ThuyAnh Nguyen participated in the Virtual Institute by National Humanities Center in June 2023. She joined Cohort 10 with three colleagues from other universities to produce a collaborative Podcast Humanist for a Better Future. ThuyAnh followed this up with an August presentation at the 14th Conference Engaging with Vietnam in Hue, Vietnam. Her presentation “The IDEAL World to Keep Students in Vietnamese Class More Engaged and Motivated with Vietnam Study” was part of a panel on “Transforming Education.” Last but not least, the Vietnamese language team from University of Michigan, Arizona State University, Columbia University and University of California, San Diego won a fully funded grant from the LCTL and Indigenous Languages Partnership to develop an Open Educational Resources Vietnamese Textbook for Intermediate Level “A Collaborative Project: Vietnamese Textbook For Intermediate Level” (2023-2024).
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FROM THE FIELD AND BEYOND
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ALC faculty Juhn Ahn and Sangseraima Ujeed joined an interdisciplinary expedition under the auspices of the Humanities Collaboratory project “Northern Realms of the Mongol Empire” that traveled to Mongolia this summer with other U of M faculty, post docs, graduate and undergraduate students from History, Archaeology, Anthropology, and Film, as well as the area librarian. They report returning with almost 200 kg of books and thousands of photos and videos of Buddhist monuments in Central and Western Mongolia.
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 Last semester, UMMA’s Curator of Asian Art, Dr. Natsu Oyobe, gave a guest demonstration of Japanese Tea Ceremony and introduced students to the art of wearing a kimono in ASIAN 200/HISTORY 203 (Introduction to Japanese Civilization).
Pictured here are Dr. Oyobe and student participant Tehreem "Hania" Zafar.
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Coming up: Our first departmental colloquium will take place on October 5 in STB 4000, 4:00-5:00. Our speaker will be LRCCS Postdoctoral Fellow Peter Braden, and we will be discussing his pre-circulated paper “The Rodent Revolution in Chinese Medicine: 1920-1980.” For a copy of the paper, please contact Peter directly at petebrad@umich.edu.
 On August 25th, the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures participated in a Welcome Week Language Fair with several other campus partners. We saw over 60 new students connect with our ALC language instructors in Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. Students played games, witnessed cultural pieces, won prizes, and explored what the different language programs offered at Michigan can offer. We look forward to hosting more opportunities to engage students.
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 It is with deep sadness that I share the news of the passing of one of ALC’s distinguished PhD alums, Dr. Charles J. Quinn (1948-2023). Charlie completed both his MA (1981) and PhD (1987) in the department, where he worked closely with the late Robert H. Brower. Prior to graduating, he taught at IU-Bloomington, moving to The Ohio State University in 1987 where he remained throughout his career. A dedicated teacher and linguist, Charlie organized two iterations of “Teaching Classical Japanese: A Practitioner’s workshop” in 2021 and 2022, bringing together bungo scholars from around the Midwest. It was through these workshops that I met him: Charlie, despite his immense erudition and decades of experience, had a gift for making everyone feel welcome and valued. He was also committed to sharing Classical Japanese Literature as widely as possible and in that spirit developed this website. A generous and rigorous scholar, he will be missed.
For a fuller celebration of Charlie’s life and legacy, please click here.
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STAY IN TOUCH
The departmental newsletter is published in September, January, and April, and we’d love to hear from you! Please send your submissions and/or any questions to the Associate Chair (elbright@umich.edu), and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
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